Primus Telecommunications Group

1.4 out of
5, based on 10 ratings and25 reviews & complaints.

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A Nightmare

Posted by Kebmo on 05/12/2011

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS -- I run a small school in Chicago. Every nine weeks we enroll around 400 students. In October of 2010 we received a call from Primus saying they needed to replace our modem. Until then service had been glitchy, but usable. Two days after the new modem our system went down. It wasn't fixed for two weeks. They said it was somehow our fault. But bottom line, we were without phones for two weeks in the middle of registration. Our enrollment for that term didn't reach 250.
After everything settled down I called a meeting with our Rep Scott. I asked for some form of compensation. Six months of free service â about $3600. Far less than the $20,000 or more I had lost. Scott said "he wasn't authorized to make that decision" but he would take it to his boss. The answer was no compensation. I then told Scott that we wouldn't pay anymore until I had the chance to talk to someone face-to-face. He said he would set it up â no meeting. I asked again â no meeting. Then they cut off our phones in the middle of our next registration period. Another $15,000 to $20,000 lost. I asked Scott if they could turn the phones on for a week, set up a meeting so we could work something out. No meeting, no phones. So I called our old phone service.
The next thing I heard from Primus was that our $2000 bill would be going to collection and a $14,000 cancellation fee would be added to it.
I called and asked for the names of Scott's boss and the person next up the line from him. I emailed all three with my story and documentation. I received an email back from Tom Mazerski. He was polite, but handed me a pile of corporate speak. "I am sorry we did not meet your expectations" "The problem we all have is that, to the extent there is a legal document between the companies, the business folks have to move over and let the legal process work.â

So it is not proper for Kevin or anyone on his team to comment on any of the legal/financial issues going forward"
I asked a couple of times who was above him that I could talk to. He never responded to the question. I have since found out that his title is president for U.S. retail services.
Talk about being stonewalled.
The bill has been turned over to a collection agency and now totals $24,000.
The economy has been hard on us, but adding in the lost revenue with no phones and the cancellation fee, it looks like Primus will be putting a thirty year old business out of business. Stay away.

Steve Merle
Director, Act One Studios
Chicago, IL.

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It Couldn't Be Worse Than This

Posted by WPatcher on 07/06/2009

Here is a company that not only has the worst phone and billing setup but also the worst kind of staff to deal with customers. My nightmare started when our bookkeeper delayed a check by one week and without warning we lost all ability to stay open and perform our job (mind you this was a business line and my business was practically crippled without service for over a week). Their system made our phone service unusable without any prior notice. Primus does not have a viable system for a company that relies on phones to do their business. We had to delay operations for 3 days and send our employees home until they fixed their error to gets us back on line.

Their Customer Service is like a roulette game, every time you get a new representative with new answer to the same concern. The frustration I felt aggravated due to the Customer Support person whose explanations were not clear at all, and whose accent was so strong that I had to ask her to repeat most of the letters that she was spelling.

First day it took me 2 hours & 5 hangups to get connected to a representative and then to be told that the line had been disconnected by Primus. The I was told that I would be contacted back in two hours which never happened. When I called back again and asked for a supervisor as this was impacting my business I was told that the call could not be passed onto the supervisor. When I put my foot down saying that I would not speak to anyone but to a sup guess what ... the representative hung up on me.

Well finally it took me like 25 odd calls and several escalations to get this resolved in 4 days. I have decided to part ways and switch to a different service provider after this experience.

Frankly reasonable rates are one thing, but taking a company down due to a human error and having no way to quickly be warned or be fixed is completely unacceptable.

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Horrible service

Posted by Kathleen on 06/12/2014

Rating: 1/51

I have subscribed to Lingo for a number of years, and recently discovered that they were charging me for two telephone lines, instead of one. They need to set up a phone number for you while they port your old number over, and they never cancel it unless you expressly ask them to. The customer service is horrid. I have switched over to OOMA and am having a nightmare trying to cancel Lingo! I guess I am just going to have to cancel the credit card they were billing to. Their call center is off shore somewhere. I asked them where they were located and was told the Philippines, but I hear Indian accents whenever I call.

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Lingo Service Is A Disaster

Posted by Anish on 06/08/2013

Rating: 1/51

I joined LINGO because of some customer service call for $9.95 for 6 months offer. But when I called up to join LINGO they didn't even know about the offer. Somehow they tried persuading me to join with some contract but at last they agreed (after consulting with the manager as they say)to give away the offer. There it started the disaster. I used to keep getting billed for $23.99 with taxes and fees for $12.99 every month and I had to call them up to refund the $14.00 they charged extra. And they credit that as a credit memo which will be applied next month. I had to keep calling them every month and do the same.

After 3 months of constant creeping, they applied the discount to my account and somehow they lost the credit card details from my account. Once the next Invoice was generated (even though the due date is June 12 2013) they suspended my account due to non payment. Oh what more to say, I had a difficult time with Customer service guys and decided to get rid of this crap. I am not sure what more disasters are on my way, as I have to send the device back within 14 days and pay money for the service I haven't used.

Moral : STAY AWAY FROM THESE LINGO GUYS.

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They Need to Be Forced Out of Business

Posted by C on 08/19/2012

Rating: 1/51

CLARKSVILLE, TENNESSEE -- Lingo charged me money for service which was never established. After I submitted LOA to transfer line and equipment installed, they repeatedly asked for "PIN" associated with existing service for this purpose. No "PIN" existed, of which point was communicated via e-correspondence. I became frustrated with nonsensical and incoherent correspondence and expressed my desire to discontinue. This was three months ago. When I called them to cancel, the representative persisted in attempting to pass me on to their tech support, in spite of very clear request to terminate.

Then she passed me on to "billing dispute" dept, where another stated the charges were "valid" because I was subscribing to their service so they will not refund. I am complaining on the ground that 1. the line was never transferred from existing, invalidating their claim of "service", and 2. the reps were not sufficiently competent to assist in completing transfer and subsequent communication.

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Lingo too bad with customers

Posted by valobasha on 01/07/2010

There is a class action lawsuit pending. U should join the class action suit against Lingo by submitting your complains in the following link.

http://www.classadvocate.com//classaction.php?id=1567

I was a Lingo Residential customer since June 2008. They offered me 29.99 plan US/Canada unlimited with call Bangladesh 2.9c per minute. All of a sudden they started charging me 5.9c a minute from May 2009. I called them and they said they can change the contract any time. They also did not allow me to cancel without $99 early termination fee even though they breached the original agreement. Then I decided to keep a low rate service for 8.99 with limited access to avoid paying $99 cancellation fee up front but they actually put me another new 1 year contract from May 2009 instead of continue the time from June 2008 even though I was with them for 11 months.

In September/October 2009 when they offer Lingo World Max calling plan (That included free Bangladesh unlimited) I took their 24.99 plan and again they put me in a new 1 year contract instead of count past time. I also referred couple of friends as well. Per referral they promised $50 after 90 days. Before even 90 day they just suspended my account. They suspend my account in such a way so that they do not have to pay me the referral bonuses.
I reduced the call to less than 6 International numbers for over a month after I receive their 1st High-Usage e-mail until suspension of my account but still they suspended my account and force me to cancel the service.
I call total less than 3000 minutes per month that includes overseas calls. According to their term if I exceed the limit 5000 minutes they should charge me but not suspend my account or cancel my account. I lost my all referrals because of suspension. They put me in a position that I could not even transfer my number to the new provider because of the account status is suspended. They do not pick up the call to fix the problem.

My frustration is according to section (ii) even I reduce less than 6 (six) unique phone numbers (International) I did not understand how I violate their residential policy. I found Lingo uses unethical business policy and does whatever they want to do whenever they want.

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Primus is the worst of the worst! Yet the others are not so great either.

Posted by kskikski on 07/24/2009

This company has got to be the worst company in the world next to DHL and UPS. At least the worst that I have ever had experience with. They put me on hold for 40 minutes last fall when I had just moved to another city and although I gave plenty of notice that I was moving, I did not have phone service for 2 weeks because of them! They screwed up over and over and over. I had to actually call the technicians they contract out (outside their company)to install their services. Only then did I get my phone service at my new address. Then what do they do? They charge me for my old address and my new address the same month! Yet I had not even lived at my old address for over a month. Idiots.

I called customer service repeatedly for 2 weeks (from my cell phone which ended up costing me a whole lot too!) and emailed them repeatedly (everyday) from my neighbor's Internet. They would not even give me any kind of credit for this lack of service either! Then because they charged my credit card twice for a full months service for both addresses instead of only 2 weeks for the one address that they provided service for, I told them verbally 2 times and through writing 4 times not to charge my credit card. What did they do? They continued to charge my credit card. I was so angry and called and told them off about it and the representative threatened to cut off my Internet (not my phone) service if I want my cc removed. I told her that she is out of her mind if she thinks that I will be threatened by that. I told her they were committing fraud each time they charged my card when I told them 6 times they cannot charge it any longer!! Only when I filed disputes with my credit card company did they correct their false charges THREE MONTHS later!! And 6 months later, they continued to charge my credit card. I would have long ago cancelled my service if only they would not have hung the threat over my head of a contract which I never agreed to.
Anyway, finally, I called again and told them that I reported my credit card (which they had on file) as stolen and that their charges would not go through anyway.. only then did they start to send me bills rather than attempt to charge my cc, which they could no longer do anyway.

What a horrible horrible company. As soon as I am free, I will quit this stupid monkey-run phone company service.

DO NOT sign up with Primus. Do NOT

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Don't Waste Your Time Dealing With This Scam After You Subscribe

Posted by Maksudul on 10/30/2013

Rating: 1/51

BRONX, NEW YORK -- No customer service solution:

** Charged me 3 months after cancelling
** after 30 hours of calling they suspended my account (So called unlimited)
** I lost my home phone number because they did not allow my new company to port.
** They will lower your voice quality as time goes by.
** I was without my number 3 Months MISSING Call from BANKS CREDIT CARDS and all other places.

You want to go with those folks GOD bless you.

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Bad, bad, bad

Posted by Archie on 07/29/2013

Rating: 1/51

MCLEAN, VIRGINIA -- Constant poor quality calls resulted in constant evasions and misdirection from their tech support. Finally choose to cancel and they have decided to start sending bogus claims for money saying I didn't return their equipment when their own policy says that after the first year you don't need to.

Unprofessional, deeply disappointing and to be avoided

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This Company Is Fraud

Posted by Parvinder on 06/04/2013

Rating: 1/51

MCLEAN, VIRGINIA -- Sales person will promise you all the world but none is delivered. Once you switch they change rates and customer service is worst and if you cancel the service they keep charging your credit card.